The Root of the Evil
Free Produce and Radical Antislavery, 1820–1860
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23137255 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carol Faulkner (0000-0001-7843-4712, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 377-405 |
| Publication date | 2007-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the Early Republic (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0275-1275 • E-ISSN: 1553-0620 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/jer.2007.0038 |
| OpenAlex | W2095207419 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 18 |
Though seldom studied, advocates of "free produce," or abstinence from the products of slave labor, were the radical conscience of American abolitionism, leading the call for immediate emancipation, embracing interracial organizing, and promoting moral suasion through exemplary behavior. Following successful eighteenth-century boycotts, British Quaker Elizabeth Heyrick argued in 1824 that a movement advancing free produce could quickly end slavery. Linking the sins of the consumer with the sins of the slaveholder, American advocates of free produce urged fellow abolitionists to renounce all contact with human bondage. Often portrayed as ineffectual purists committed to individual salvation, supporters in fact promoted free labor through practical measures like stores and associations. While William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists rejected the boycott in the 1840s, women like Lucretia Mott and African Americans like Henry Highland Garnet continued to urge the use of free produce until the Civil War. Activist women emphasized free produce as a matter of ideological consistency and moral responsibility. For black abolitionists, experiments in free cotton and sugar production contributed to their growing interest in emigration in the 1850s. While the movement never gained enough adherents to destroy slavery, its continuing popularity among the most radical and diverse group of abolitionists suggests that anti-slavery, like many other liberation movements, depended upon such symbolic sacrifices.
Abolitionism · Emancipation · Immorality · Morality · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American History and Culture · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Law · Race, History, and American Society
The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade
The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars’
Quaker Women and Anti-Slavery Activism
Women, Dissent, and Anti-Slavery in Britain and America, 1790–1865
The Body Politic and the Citizen’s Mouth
Debating Slavery and Empire
Cultivating Fruit and Equality
The Moral Geography of British Anti-Slavery Responsibilities
Polluted Luxuries”
The Business of Abolition
Slavery and human progress
Building an Antislavery Wall
The Black Hearts of Men
The Abolitionist Sisterhood
Passionate Liberator
Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic. Volume 1, Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850
Philadelphia's Black Elite
Quakers in Conflict
The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism
Slave sugar boycotts, female activism and the domestic base of British anti‐slavery culture 1
Sister Societies
The Free Produce Movement
The Sacred Rights of the Weak
The Black Abolitionist Papers. Vol. I
Will American Consumers Buy a Second American Revolution
The Antislavery Debate
Buy for the Sake of the Slave
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2023 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |